Edelmannshof

In the Middle Ages, the village of Perschen was the seat of one of the oldest parishes in the Upper Palatinate. The Romanesque church was erected shortly after the year 1200 and served as the parish’s spiritual center. A cemetery and the ossuary were already a part of the church at that time.

A Pfarrhof (a rectory including a farm and farmyard) was also part of the church complex. It was owned and run by the church. The local priests lived there. They made a living from the crops that were harvested from the fields belonging to the Pfarrhof. Therefore, the rectory was called Widenhof for a long time. The name Widenhof is derived from the old German word Widem, which refers to a piece of property owned by a parish church and used solely for the sustenance of the parish priest.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the priests from Perschen increasingly chose the city of Nabburg as the seat of their parish. Therefore, by the year 1522 at the latest, the ownership of Widenhof was transferred to farmers. In 1605, two such farmers, Andres and Lienhart Hilprant, built the byre-dwelling (a farmhouse combining living quarters and livestock stables under one roof) as you see it today.

In 1692, the nobleman Claudius von Stein owned the farm for six years, interrupting the lineage of the farmer families that had owned the property thus far. This short episode apparently impressed the Perschen residents, so much so that they named the farm Edelmannshof. Edelmann means nobleman in German. The name is still in use today.

From 1698 to 1957, the Hösl Family lived on the farm. However, towards the end of this period, the farm was too small for the demands of modern agriculture. The Hösls therefore moved to a newly built large farm complex on the edge of town in 1957. Edelmannshof was in danger of becoming derelict.

A teacher named Alfons Hasenender wanted to prevent the farm from falling into a state of disrepair and founded an association for this purpose. The association bought the farm complex and opened the Oberpfälzisches Bauernmuseum (Upper Palatinate Farmers’ Museum) there in 1964. However, the running of the museum quickly exceeded the association’s financial capacity, and the district of the Upper Palatinate took over the Bauernmuseum in 1977.